1.Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by
objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is
first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these laws
being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure.

Realism, believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also
believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, however
imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also, then, in the
possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion-between what is true
objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and what is
only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice
and wishful thinking.

Human nature, in which the laws of politics have their roots, has not changed since the
classical philosophies of China, India, and Greece endeavored to discover these laws.
Hence, novelty is not necessarily a virtue in political theory, nor is old age a defect.
The fact that a theory of politics, if there be such a theory, has never been heard of
before tends to create a presumption against, rather than in favor of, its soundness.
Conversely, the fact that a theory of politics was developed hundreds or even thousands of
years ag~as was the theory of the balance of power-does not create a presumption that it
must be outmoded and obsolete. A theory of politics must be subjected to the dual test of
reason and experience. To dismiss such a theory because it had its flowering in centuries
past is to present not a rational argument but a modernistic prejudice that takes for
granted the superiority of the present over the past. To dispose of the revival of such a
theory as a "fashion" or "fad" is tantamount to assuming that in
matters political we can have opinions but no truths.

For realism, theory consists in ascertaining facts and giving them meaning through
reason. It assumes that the character of a foreign policy can be ascertained only through
the examination of the political acts performed and of the foreseeable consequences of
these acts. Thus we can find out what statesmen have actually done, and from the
foreseeable consequences of their acts we can surmise what their objectives might have
been.

Yet examination of the facts is not enough. To give meaning to the factual raw material
of foreign policy, we must approach political reality with a kind of rational outline, a
map that suggests to us the possible meanings of foreign policy. In other words, we put
ourselves in the position of a statesman who must meet a certain problem of foreign policy
under certain circumstances, and we ask ourselves what the rational alternatives are from
which a statesman may choose who must meet this problem under these circumstances
(presuming always that he acts in a rational manner), and which of these rational
alternatives this particular statesman, acting under these circumstances, is likely to
choose. It is the testing of this rational hypothesis against the actual facts and their
consequences that gives theoretical meaning to the facts of international politics.

2. The main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape
of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power. This
concept provides the link between reason trying to understand international politics and
the facts to be understood. It sets politics as an autonomous sphere of action and
understanding apart from other spheres, such as economics (understood in terms of interest
defined as wealth), ethics, aesthetics, or religion. Without such a concept a theory of
politics, international or domestic, would be altogether impossible, for without it we
could not distinguish between political and nonpolitical facts, nor could we bring at
least a measure of systematic order to the political sphere.

We assume that statesmen think and act in terms of interest defined as power,
and the evidence of history bears that assumption out. That assumption allows
us to retrace and anticipate, as it were, the steps a statesman--past, present,
or future--has taken or will take on the political scene. We look over his shoulder
when he writes his dispatches; we listen in on his conversation with other statesmen;
we read and anticipate his very thoughts. Thinking in terms of interest defined
as power, we think as he does, and as disinterested observers we understand
his thoughts and actions perhaps better than he, the actor on the political
scene, does himself.

The concept of interest defined as power imposes intellectual discipline upon the
observer, infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the
theoretical understanding of politics possible. On the side of the actor, it provides for
rational discipline in action and creates that astounding continuity in foreign policy
which makes American, British, or Russian foreign policy appear as an intelligible,
rational continuum, by and large consistent within itself, regardless of the different
motives, preferences, and intellectual and moral qualities of successive statesmen. A
realist theory of international politics, then, will guard against two popular fallacies:
the concern with motives and the concern with ideological preferences.

To search for the clue to foreign policy exclusively in the motives of statesmen is
both futile and deceptive. It is futile because motives are the most illusive of
psychological data, distorted as they are, frequently beyond recognition, by the interests
and emotions of actor and observer alike. Do we really know what our own motives are? And
what do we know of the motives of others?

Yet even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge would help
us little in understanding foreign policies, and might well lead us astray. It is true
that the knowledge of the statesman's motives may give us one among many clues as to what
the direction of his foreign policy might be. It cannot give us, however, the one clue by
which to predict his foreign policies. History shows no exact and necessary correlation
between the quality of motives and the quality of foreign policy. This is true in both
moral and political terms.

We cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his foreign policies
will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful. Judging his motives, we can
say that he will not intentionally pursue policies that are morally wrong, but we can say
nothing about the probability of their success. If we want to know the moral and political
qualities of his actions, we must know them, not his motives. How often have statesmen
been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended by making it worse? And how
often have they sought one goal, and ended by achieving something they neither expected
nor desired?

Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired by
good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal power than were
many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve peace and to assure the
happiness of all concerned. Yet his policies helped to make the Second World War
inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions of men. Sir Winston Churchill's
motives, on the other hand, were much less universal in scope and much more narrowly
directed toward personal and national power, yet the foreign policies that sprang from
these inferior motives were certainly superior in moral and political quality to those
pursued by his predecessor. Judged by his motives, Robespierre was one of the most
virtuous men who ever lived. Yet it was the utopian radicalism of that very virtue that
made him kill those less virtuous than himself, brought him to the scaffold, and destroyed
the revolution of which he was a leader.

Good motives give assurance against deliberately bad policies; they do not guarantee
the moral goodness and political success of the policies they inspire. What is important
to know, if one wants to understand foreign policy, is not primarily the motives of a
statesman, but his intellectual ability to comprehend the essentials of foreign policy, as
well as his political ability to translate what he has comprehended into successful
political action. It follows that while ethics in the abstract judges the moral qualities
of motives, political theory must judge the political qualities of intellect, will, and
action.

A realist theory of international politics will also avoid the other popular
fallacy of equating the foreign policies of a statesman with his philosophic
or political sympathies, and of deducing the former from the latter. Statesmen,
especially under contemporary conditions, may well make a habit of presenting
their foreign policies in terms of their philosophic and political sympathies
in order to gain popular support for them. Yet they will distinguish with Lincoln
between their "official duty," which is to think and act in
terms of the national interest, and their "personal wish,"
which is to see their own moral values and political principles realized throughout
the world. Political realism does not require, nor does it condone, indifference
to political ideals and moral principles, but it requires indeed a sharp distinction
between the desirable and the possible-between what is desirable everywhere
and at all times and what is possible under the concrete circumstances of time
and place.

It stands to reason that not all foreign policies have always followed so rational,
objective, and unemotional a course. The contingent elements of personality, prejudice,
and subjective preference, and of all the weaknesses of intellect and will which flesh is
heir to, are bound to deflect foreign policies from their rational course. Especially
where foreign policy is conducted under the conditions of democratic control, the need to
marshal popular emotions to the support of foreign policy cannot fail to impair the
rationality of foreign policy itself. Yet a theory of foreign policy which aims at
rationality must for the time being, as it were, abstract from these irrational elements
and seek to paint a picture of foreign policy which presents the rational essence to be
found in experience, without the contingent deviations from rationality which are also
found in experience.

Deviations from rationality which are not the result of the personal whim or the
personal psychopathology of the policy maker may appear contingent only from the vantage
point of rationality, but may themselves be elements in a coherent system of
irrationality. The conduct of the Indochina War by the United States suggests that
possibility. It is a question worth looking into whether modern psychology and psychiatry
have provided us with the conceptual tools which would enable us to construct, as it were,
a counter-theory of irrational politics, a kind of pathology of international politics.

The experience of the Indochina War suggests five factors such a theory might
encompass: the imposition upon the empirical world of a simplistic and a priori picture
of the world derived from folklore and ideological assumption, that is, the replacement of
experience with superstition; the refusal to correct this picture of the world in the
light of experience; the persistence in a foreign policy derived from the misperception of
reality and the use of intelligence for the purpose not of adapting policy to reality but
of reinterpreting reality to fit policy; the egotism of the policy makers widening the gap
between perception and policy, on the one hand, and reality, on the other; finally, the
urge to close the gap at least subjectively by action, any kind of action, that creates
the illusion of mastery over a recalcitrant reality. According to the Wall Street
Journal of April 3, 1970, "the desire to 'do something' pervades top levels of
Government and may overpower other 'common sense' advice that insists the U.S. ability to
shape events is negligible. The yen for action could lead to bold policy as therapy."

The difference between international politics as it actually is and a rational theory
derived from it is like the difference between a photograph and a painted portrait. The
photograph shows everything that can be seen by the naked eye; the painted portrait does
not show everything that can be seen by the naked eye, but it shows, or at least seeks to
show, one thing that the naked eye cannot see: the human essence of the person portrayed.

Political realism contains not only a theoretical but also a normative element. It
knows that political reality is replete with contingencies and systemic irrationalities
and points to the typical influences they exert upon foreign policy. Yet it shares with
all social theory the need, for the sake of theoretical understanding, to stress the
rational elements of political reality; for it is these rational elements that make
reality intelligible for theory. Political realism presents the theoretical construct of a
rational foreign policy which experience can never completely achieve.

At the same time political realism considers a rational foreign policy to be good
foreign policy; for only a rational foreign policy minimizes risks and maximizes benefits
and, hence, complies both with the moral precept of prudence and the political requirement
of success. Political realism wants the photographic picture of the political world to
resemble as much as possible its painted portrait. Aware of the inevitable gap between
goodthat is, rationalforeign policy and foreign policy as it actually is,
political realism maintains not only that theory must focus upon the rational elements of
political reality, but also that foreign policy ought to be rational in view of its own
moral and practical purposes.

Hence, it is no argument against the theory here presented that actual foreign policy
does not or cannot live up to it. That argument misunderstands the intention of this book,
which is to present not an indiscriminate description of political reality, but a rational
theory of international politics. Far from being invalidated by the fact that, for
instance, a perfect balance of power policy will scarcely be found in reality, it assumes
that reality, being deficient in this respect, must be understood and evaluated as an
approximation to an ideal system of balance of power.

3. Realism assumes that its key concept of interest defined as power is an objective
category which is universally valid, but it does not endow that concept with a meaning
that is fixed once and for all. The idea of interest is indeed of the essence of politics
and is unaffected by the circumstances of time and place. Thucydides' statement, born of
the experiences of ancient Greece, that "identity of interests is the surest of bonds
whether between states or individuals" was taken up in the nineteenth century by Lord
Salisbury's remark that "the only bond of union that endures" among nations is
"the absence of all clashing interests." It was erected into a general principle
of government by George Washington:

A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of
mankind, interest is the governing principle; and that almost every man is more or less,
under its influence. Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in particular instances,
actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely disinterested; but they are not of
themselves sufficient to produce persevering conformity to the refined dictates and
obligations of social duty. Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all
views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against
the depravity of human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age
and nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of man,
before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of
these maxims can succeed.

It was echoed and enlarged upon in our century by Max Weber's observation:

Interests (material and ideal), not ideas, dominate directly the actions of men. Yet
the "images of the world" created by these ideas have very often served as
switches determining the tracks on which the dynamism of interests kept actions moving.

Yet the kind of interest determining political action in a particular period of history
depends upon the political and cultural context within which foreign policy is formulated.
The goals that might be pursued by nations in their foreign policy can run the whole gamut
of objectives any nation has ever pursued or might possibly pursue.

The same observations apply to the concept of power. Its content and the manner of its
use are determined by the political and cultural environment. Power may comprise anything
that establishes and maintains the control of man over man. Thus power covers all social
relationships which serve that end, from physical violence to the most subtle
psychological ties by which one mind controls another. Power covers the domination of man
by man, both when it is disciplined by moral ends and controlled by constitutional
safeguards, as in Western democracies, and when it is that untamed and barbaric force
which finds its laws in nothing but its own strength and its sole justification in its
aggrandizement.

Political realism does not assume that the contemporary conditions under which foreign
policy operates, with their extreme instability and the ever present threat of large-scale
violence, cannot be changed. The balance of power, for instance, is indeed a perennial
element of all pluralistic societies, as the authors of The Federalist papers well
knew; yet it is capable of operating, as it does in the United States, under the
conditions of relative stability and peaceful conflict. If the factors that have given
rise to these conditions can be duplicated on the international scene, similar conditions
of stability and peace will then prevail there, as they have over long stretches of
history among certain nations.

What is true of the general character of international relations is also true of the
nation state as the ultimate point of reference of contemporary foreign policy. While the
realist indeed believes that interest is the perennial standard by which political action
must be judged and directed, the contemporary connection between interest and the nation
state is a product of history, and is therefore bound to disappear in the course of
history. Nothing in the realist position militates against the assumption that the present
division of the political world into nation states will be replaced by larger units of a
quite different character, more in keeping with the technical potentialities and the moral
requirements of the contemporary world.

The realist parts company with other schools of thought before the all-important
question of how the contemporary world is to be transformed. The realist is persuaded that
this transformation can be achieved only through the workmanlike manipulation of the
perennial forces that have shaped the past as they will the future. The realist cannot be
persuaded that we can bring about that transformation by confronting a political reality
that has its own laws with an abstract ideal that refuses to take those laws into account.

4. Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also
aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of
successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension
and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though
the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the
moral law less exacting than it actually is.

Realism maintains that universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of
states in their abstract universal formulation, but that they must be filtered through the
concrete circumstances of time and place. The individual may say for himself: "Fiat
justitia, pereat mundus (Let justice be done, even if the world perish)," but the
state has no right to say so in the name of those who are in its care. Both individual and
state must judge political action by universal moral principles, such as that of liberty.
Yet while the individual has a moral right to sacrifice himself in defense of such a moral
principle, the state has no right to let its moral disapprobation of the infringement of
liberty get in the way of successful political action, itself inspired by the moral
principle of national survival. There can be no political morality without prudence; that
is, without consideration of the political consequences of seemingly moral action.
Realism, then, considers prudence-the weighing of the consequences of alternative
political actions-to be the supreme virtue in politics. Ethics in the abstract judges
action by its conformity with the moral law; political ethics judges action by its
political consequences. Classical and medieval philosophy knew this, and so did Lincoln
when he said:

I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until
the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to
anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no
difference.

5. Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation
with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and
opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted-and few
have been able to resist the temptation for long-to clothe their own particular
aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are
subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is
good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of
difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God,
inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's
side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also.

The lighthearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of
Providence is morally indefensible, for it is that very sin of pride against which the
Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets have warned rulers and ruled. That equation is
also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the distortion in judgment
which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations-in the
name of moral principle, ideal, or God himself.

On the other hand, it is exactly the concept of interest defined in terms of power that
saves us from both that moral excess and that political folly. For if we look at all
nations, our own included, as political entities pursuing their respective interests
defined in terms of power, we are able to do justice to all of them. And we are able to do
justice to all of them in a dual sense: We are able to judge other nations as we judge our
own and, having judged them in this fashion, we are then capable of pursuing policies that
respect the interests of other nations, while protecting and promoting those of our own.
Moderation in policy cannot fail to reflect the moderation of moral judgment.

6. The difference, then, between political realism and other schools of thought is
real, and it is profound. However much the theory of political realism may have been
misunderstood and misinterpreted, there is no gainsaying its distinctive intellectual and
moral attitude to matters political.

Intellectually, the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere,
as the economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintain theirs. He thinks in terms of interest
defined as power, as the economist thinks in terms of interest defined as wealth; the
lawyer, of the conformity of action with legal rules; the moralist, of the conformity of
action with moral principles. The economist asks: "How does this policy affect the
wealth of society, or a segment of it?" The lawyer asks: "Is this policy in
accord with the rules of law?" The moralist asks: "Is this policy in accord with
moral principles?" And the political realist asks: "How does this policy affect
the power of the nation?" (Or of the federal government, of Congress, of the party,
of agriculture, as the case may be.)

The political realist is not unaware of the existence and relevance of standards of
thought other than political ones. As political realist, he cannot but subordinate these
other standards to those of politics. And he parts company with other schools when they
impose standards of thought appropriate to other spheres upon the political sphere. It is
here that political realism takes issue with the "legalistic-moralistic
approach" to international politics. That this issue is not, as has been contended, a
mere figment of the imagination, but goes to the very core of the controversy, can be
shown from many historical examples. Three will suffice to make the point.3

In 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Finland. This action confronted France and Great
Britain with two issues, one legal, the other political. Did that action violate the
Covenant of the League of Nations and, if it did, what countermeasures should France and
Great Britain take? The legal question could easily be answered in the affirmative, for
obviously the Soviet Union had done what was prohibited by the Covenant. The answer to the
political question depends, first, upon the manner in which the Russian action affected
the interests of France and Great Britain; second, upon the existing distribution of power
between France and Great Britain, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and other
potentially hostile nations, especially Germany, on the other; and, third, upon the
influence that the countermeasures were likely to have upon the interests of France and
Great Britain and the future distribution of power. France and Great Britain, as the
leading members of the League of Nations, saw to it that the Soviet Union was expelled
from the League, and they were prevented from joining Finland in the war against the
Soviet Union only by Sweden's refusal to allow their troops to pass through Swedish
territory on their way to Finland. If this refusal by Sweden had not saved them, France
and Great Britain would shortly have found themselves at war with the Soviet Union and
Germany at the same time.

The policy of France and Great Britain was a classic example of legalism in that they
allowed the answer to the legal question, legitimate within its sphere, to determine their
political actions. Instead of asking both questions, that of law and that of power, they
asked only the question of law; and the answer they received could have no bearing on the
issue that their very existence might have depended upon.

The second example illustrates the "moralistic approach" to international
politics. It concerns the international status of the Communist government of
China. The rise of that government confronted the Western world with two issues,
one moral, the other political. Were the nature and policies of that government
in accord with the moral principles of the Western world? Should the Western
world deal with such a government? The answer to the first question could not
fail to be in the negative. Yet it did not follow with necessity that the answer
to the second question should also be in the negative. The standard of thought
applied to the first--the moral questionwas simply to test the nature
and the policies of the Communist government of China by the principles of Western
morality. On the other hand, the secondthe political questionhad
to be subjected to the complicated test of the interests involved and the power
available on either side, and of the bearing of one or the other course of action
upon these interests and power. The application of this test could well have
led to the conclusion that it would be wiser not to deal with the Communist
government of China. To arrive at this conclusion by neglecting this test altogether
and answering the political question in terms of the moral issue was indeed
a classic example of the "moralistic approach" to international politics.

The third case illustrates strikingly the contrast between realism and the
legalistic-moralistic approach to foreign policy. Great Britain, as one of the guarantors
of the neutrality of Belgium, went to war with Germany in August 1914 because Germany had
violated the neutrality of Belgium. The British action could be justified either in
realistic or legalistic-moralistic terms. That is to say, one could argue realistically
that for centuries it had -been axiomatic for British foreign policy to prevent the
control of the Low Countries by a hostile power. It was then not so much the violation of
Belgium's neutrality per se as the hostile intentions of the violator which provided the
rationale for British intervention. If the violator had been another nation but Germany,
Great Britain might well have refrained from intervening. This is the position taken by
Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary during that period. Under Secretary for Foreign
Affairs Hardinge remarked to him in 1908: "If France violated Belgian neutrality in a
war against Germany, it is doubtful whether England or Russia would move a finger to
maintain Belgian neutrality, while if the neutrality of Belgium was violated by Germany,
it is probable that the converse would be the case." Whereupon Sir Edward Grey
replied: "This is to the point." Yet one could also take the legalistic and
moralistic position that the violation of Belgium's neutrality per se, because of its
legal and moral defects and regardless of the interests at stake and of the identity of
the violator, justified British and, for that matter, American intervention. This was the
position which Theodore Roosevelt took in his letter to Sir Edward Grey of January 22,
1915:

To me the crux of the situation has been Belgium. If England or France had acted toward
Belgium as Germany has acted I should have opposed them, exactly as I now oppose Germany.
I have emphatically approved your action as a model for what should be done by those who
believe that treaties should be observed in good faith and that there is such a thing as
international morality. I take this position as an American who is no more an Englishman
than he is a German, who endeavors loyally to serve the interests of his own country, but
who also endeavors to do what he can for justice and decency as regards mankind at large,
and who therefore feels obliged to judge all other nations by their conduct on any given
occasion.

This realist defense of the autonomy of the political sphere against its subversion by
other modes of thought does not imply disregard for the existence and importance of these
other modes of thought. It rather implies that each should be assigned its proper sphere
and function. Political realism is based upon a pluralistic conception of human nature.
Real man is a composite of "economic man," "political man,"
"moral man," "religious man," etc. A man who was nothing but
"political man" would be a beast, for he would be completely lacking in moral
restraints. A man who was nothing but "moral man" would be a fool, for he would
be completely lacking in prudence. A man who was nothing but "religious man"
would be a saint, for he would be completely lacking in worldly desires.

Recognizing that these different facets of human nature exist, political realism also
recognizes that in order to understand one of them one has to deal with it on its own
terms. That is to say, if I want to understand "religious man," I must for the
time being abstract from the other aspects of human nature and deal with its religious
aspect as if it were the only one. Furthermore, I must apply to the religious sphere the
standards of thought appropriate to it, always remaining aware of the existence of other
standards and their actual influence upon the religious qualities of man. What is true of
this facet of human nature is true of all the others. No modern economist, for instance,
would conceive of his science and its relations to other sciences of man in any other way.
It is exactly through such a process of emancipation from other standards of thought, and
the development of one appropriate to its subject matter, that economics has developed as
an autonomous theory of the economic activities of man. To contribute to a similar
development in the field of politics is indeed the purpose of political realism.

It is in the nature of things that a theory of politics which is based upon such
principles will not meet with unanimous approval-nor does, for that matter, such a foreign
policy. For theory and policy alike run counter to two trends in our culture which are not
able to reconcile themselves to the assumptions and results of a rational, objective
theory of politics. One of these trends disparages the role of power in society on grounds
that stem from the experience and philosophy of the nineteenth century; we shall address
ourselves to this tendency later in greater detail.4 The other trend, opposed
to the realist theory and practice of politics, stems from the very relationship that
exists, and must exist, between the human mind and the political sphere. For reasons that
we shall discuss later5 the human mind in its day-by-day operations cannot bear
to look the truth of politics straight in the face. It must disguise, distort, belittle,
and embellish the truth-the more so, the more the individual is actively involved in the
processes of politics, and particularly in those of international politics. For only by
deceiving himself about the nature of politics and the role he plays on the political
scene is man able to live contentedly as a political animal with himself and his fellow
men.

Thus it is inevitable that a theory which tries to understand international politics as
it actually is and as it ought to be in view of its intrinsic nature, rather than as
people would like to see it, must overcome a psychological resistance that most other
branches of learning need not face. A book devoted to the theoretical understanding of
international politics therefore requires a special explanation and justification.